Nutritional Psychiatry: What’s Going On in Your Brain (and Your Gut)
Flourish Integrative Mental Health & Midwifery — Hillsborough, NC
Your brain is the star of the show when it comes to mental health.
It’s filled with billions of receptors that send messages between nerve cells. These messages trigger the release of neurotransmitters — chemicals like:
Serotonin (mood + emotional stability)
Dopamine (motivation + pleasure)
GABA (calm + nervous system regulation)
And here’s the part we often overlook:
These chemical messengers are built from what you eat.
Nutritional psychiatry is the science-informed understanding that food is not just fuel — it’s information for your nervous system.
Your Neurotransmitters Are Made of Food
Your brain relies on neurotransmitters to regulate mood, focus, sleep, and stress resilience. These messengers are directly influenced by your nutrition.
Serotonin (mood + emotional stability)
Supported by tryptophan-rich foods like eggs, nuts, seeds, and legumes.
Dopamine (motivation + pleasure)
Built from amino acids found in protein-rich foods like beans, lentils, tofu, eggs, and lean meats.
GABA (calm + nervous system regulation)
Supported by magnesium-rich foods like leafy greens, cacao, pumpkin seeds, and dark chocolate.
When your diet is rich in nutrients, your receptors do their job beautifully — sending the right messages at the right time. When your diet is heavy in sugar, ultra-processed foods, and inflammatory fats, those same receptors can become dysregulated, leading to mixed signals, mood swings, fatigue, anxiety, and brain fog.
Nutritional Psychiatry: Back to the Basics
You don’t need perfection. You need consistency, nourishment, and simplicity.
Here are a few foundational practices that support both mood and metabolism:
1. Eat Regularly
Ever gone too long without eating and suddenly felt irritable, anxious, or shaky?
That’s your blood sugar talking.
Regular meals stabilize glucose levels and support steady neurotransmitter production — which means fewer mood crashes and more emotional regulation.
Aim for meals that include:
A protein source
A healthy fat
A fiber-rich carbohydrate
2. Hydrate Gently
Even mild dehydration can impair focus, energy, and mood. Keep a water bottle nearby and sip throughout the day. Your brain is nearly 75% water. Hydration is nervous system medicine.
3. Balance Your Fats
Not all fats are villains. Healthy fats from foods like olive oil, avocados, nuts, seeds, and coconut support brain structure, hormone balance, and mood stability. They also help regulate inflammation and stabilize blood sugar — two key drivers of anxiety and depression.
4. Load Up on Vitamins and Minerals
Your brain thrives on micronutrients like magnesium, B vitamins, zinc, iron, iodine, and amino acids.
You’ll find these in:
Leafy greens
Colorful vegetables
Fruits
Whole grains
Legumes
Nuts and seeds
Think of food as fuel for your emotional engine.
Gut Health = Mental Health
Your gut and your brain are in constant conversation. When stress or depression hits, digestion often changes. High cortisol can slow gut motility, alter nutrient absorption, and disrupt your microbiome.
This creates a feedback loop:
Mental health struggles → gut dysregulation → worsened mental health
To nourish both your mind and belly:
Prebiotics: beans, oats, garlic, onions, leeks
Probiotics: yogurt, kefir, sauerkraut, kimchi
Fiber: apples, berries, leafy greens, lentils
When you nourish your gut, you are literally nourishing your brain.
Recommended Reading
If you’d like to go deeper into nutritional psychiatry:
This Is Your Brain on Food — Uma Naidoo, MD
Eat to Beat Depression and Anxiety — Drew Ramsey, MD
The Brain Health Kitchen — Annie Fenn, MD
The Heal Your Gut Cookbook — Hilary Boynton
Two Trusted Local Resources:
For additional nutritional support:
Whole Health Partners
https://wholehealthpartners.com/Milestones Nutrition
https://www.milestonesnutrition.com/
Final Reflection
Your mental health is shaped by what you eat, how you live, and how supported your nervous system feels. Nutritional psychiatry reminds us that healing often begins with the basics:
real food, regular meals, hydration, and nourishment.
Food is information.
Your nervous system is listening.
If you’re curious about how integrative mental health care could support your healing journey, I’d be honored to walk alongside you.